Human Capital: Agencies Need Leadership and the Supporting Infrastructure to Take Advantage of New Flexibilities

Strategic human capital is the centerpiece of agencies' efforts to transform into high-performing organizations poised to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Congress, recognizing that the federal human capital management systems designed in the past are outmoded, has provided agencies with exemptions from the old rules and new flexibilities to more strategically manage their workforce. Congress has already granted statutory exemptions and new authorities affecting more than 1.2 million civilian federal employees. The momentum is building to continue to reform the policies, processes, and systems that govern federal human capital management. Congress is interested in taking stock of how agencies have implemented the new flexibilities they have been granted, especially as it considers the future steps to be taken to achieve human capital reform. At the request of Congress, this statement provides an update of GAO's work on the progress agencies have made in implementing these flexibilities to better accomplish their missions and achieve their goals. In addition, it provides information on GAO's experiences with human capital reform and also highlights a set of consistent principles, criteria, and processes that can help to guide future reforms, whether they are new flexibilities granted to individual agencies or applied governmentwide.